


Ekpyrosis

by sockaliciously



Category: Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Background Character Death, Dream Sex, Father/Son Incest, Force Bond (Star Wars), Incest, M/M, Parent/Child Incest, Sith Luke Skywalker, The Dark Side of the Force
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-01
Updated: 2020-07-01
Packaged: 2021-03-04 01:20:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,282
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24515260
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sockaliciously/pseuds/sockaliciously
Summary: They were meant to be like this, the two of them, connected in every way, on every level.Luke Falls while fighting Palpatine; he and Vader begin a new life together.
Relationships: Luke Skywalker/Darth Vader
Comments: 6
Kudos: 109
Collections: Fandom 5K 2020





	Ekpyrosis

**Author's Note:**

  * For [MiriamKenneath](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiriamKenneath/gifts).



Luke had thought it would be easy to resist the pull of the Dark Side - to stand in the face of Emperor Palpatine’s malice and hold his ground.

Just Palpatine, maybe, he could have resisted. But Vader…

No. Not Vader. _His father_.

The air between them is charged the moment they step into the room together. The atmosphere only gets thicker when Vader dismisses the stormtroopers and officers, when they’re alone on the walkway together.

Yet still, Luke believes he can withstand the temptation. The Dark Side, he tells himself, holds nothing for him; his friends, his people, the Rebellion - they are what matters. They are what he must stand for.

But still Vader is there, a maelstrom of anger and darkness and _longing_ , the tidal wave force of him tugging at the edges of Luke’s consciousness. He knows Vader would stand with him against Palpatine, would stand with him against the whole galaxy - but he’d have to give up the greater part of himself to do it. Submit; immerse himself fully in the Dark Side.

The longer he stays in the throne room, the more their blades clash together in hot arcs of burning plasma, the easier it is to just…slip. Inch, slide, tiptoe closer to that line. The darkness is a whirlpool, a black hole, and Luke is treading closer to the edge with each second, teetering on the brink of the cliff. It whispers, seductive and sibilant, from Vader’s mind to his - _join us. Be with us._

_Fall._

Vader feels it in his mind, the moment he tips over, the cloying, choking anger in his throat rising and threatening to swallow him whole. He says “Join me, Luke,” and it doesn’t feel like Luke’s own voice when he says “Yes.”

After that, killing Palpatine is almost easy.

As they stand looking down at the body, Luke says, “What now?” The Darkness is swirling inside him, a roiling cloud of anger and pure _power_ , and he feels like he could take on a hundred more Sith Lords, like he could set fire to the galaxy with a mere thought.

“This galaxy is ours,” Vader says, “And I will make it so.”

/

The Death Star destroys Endor, blasting it into atoms, and soon enough the Rebel Fleet goes the same way. Luke watches, pushing down the lingering kernel of horror that lurks within him, forcing it down under layers of anger and resentment and pain. He loses himself in the Dark Side, and finds it’s easy, to just push off and let himself sink deeper, deeper down into this endless, fathomless well of black hatred and despair. It feels almost _good_ to give in.

“Imperial High Command are asking what befell the Emperor, my lord,” Vader’s admiral is asking. Luke feels strange here, on the bridge of an Imperial ship, like a trapped animal looking for an escape. None of the officers will look at him, but Luke knows they want to stare. Knows they’re all asking themselves, in the privacy of their own heads - _who is this interloper?_

“I am your Emperor now,” Vader says, “and that is all you need to know. Set course for Mustafar.” Then he turns and sweeps from the bridge, Luke following in his wake.

They walk the halls of the ship in silence, personnel avoiding them, walking past with their eyes glued to the floor. The sterile, stale atmosphere both suits Luke’s mood, and agitates him; walking into Vader’s bare, sparse quarters is no relief. “You still haven’t told me what’s next,” he says as the door slides shut behind them.

“There are many things to be done, but you need worry about none of them,” Vader says. “The warlords and bureaucrats of the Empire will acquiesce to my rule, or I will crush them under my heel. But you…we must see that your turn to the Dark is complete.” He turns to face Luke. “We must make a pilgrimage.”

Luke recalls the name he heard Vader give his Admiral. “Mustafar?”

“There first. But we must go further; to the very home of the Sith.”

Something shivers within Luke, touches him even through the layers of darkness he has pulled in around his soul. There is something so very final in those words, something that tells him he will not be able to step back, once he crosses this line.

 _It is already too late to step back_ , a voice says, deep within his mind, so he nods. “I will follow you anywhere,” he tells Vader, and he can feel the rush of triumph and something deeper, something almost _tender_ , that flows to him through the Force from Vader when he says that.

“Good,” Vader says.

/

Luke spends most of the trip at a loss, wandering the halls of the _Executor_ , trying not to touch the raw, tender part of his mind that’s screaming something is _wrong_ , he needs to _get out-_

He sees other people in passing, officers with bland expressions and stormtroopers with their blank helmets, but they may as well not be there, for all the thought he gives them. All his attention is focused on _not thinking._

He makes it back to the bridge before they drop from hyperspace and pull into orbit around the planet Mustafar. Luke has never been here, but he has heard of it; a place steeped in the Dark side of the Force, the Darkness bubbling here along with the glowing fields of lava. Vader leads him to a shuttle, which takes them down to the planet’s surface. There are no viewports, so Luke has no idea where they’re going; but when he steps out onto the landing platform, he sees a huge, double-pronged tower rising overhead, the peak almost lost in the gloomy grey sky. He’s heard of this place; he knows where they are.

Fortress Vader.

Vader walks ahead of him into the castle, dismissing the guards and officers until they are entirely alone.

“This place is strong in the Dark side,” Luke says, his voice echoing in the cavernous hall.

“There is a…place steeped in shadows, below,” Vader says.

Luke can feel it, like some kind of monster that crouches down there, below the deep foundations of the castle. Before it might have scared him; now, he wants to go down there. To see it. “Can I…”

“Later,” Vader tells him. “But for now, sleep.” He doesn’t say why, but Luke figures he can probably tell that Luke hasn’t slept since the Death Star. Hasn’t dared.

He hesitates only a second before saying, “Yes, father.”

/

Luke sleeps; Luke sleeps for a very long time. He dreams, and he knows the dreams are dark and terrifying, but he doesn’t remember them when he wakes up. Thankfully.

He finds Vader in what looks like an observation room. His father is still as a carved statue, staring out of the huge windows at the lava field beyond that pulses and glows with dim, evil red light. He turns his head, very slowly, to look at Luke when he walks into the room, so Luke says, “The…place of shadows?”

“The Sith locus,” Vader says quietly. “Yes. This will be the first test. Come with me.”

Luke wonders if the first test wasn’t killing the Emperor, possibly the greatest Sith Lord for hundreds of years - but he doesn’t say that. Instead he follows Vader down through layers and layers of castle, deeper and deeper and deeper. Luke can feel the pressing, choking presence of the Dark Side like a hand closing tighter and tighter around his throat, the further down they go. It makes him think of his father, the way he reaches out and twitches his hand _just so;_ the way people clutch at their throats, their breath so suddenly and sharply cut off-

He’s not entirely sure the shiver that goes down his back is one of fear.

Luke feels almost sick by the time they make it down to a room that glows deep red and orange, a room that practically vibrates with the power of the Dark. The room is ringed by cracks through which magma seeps, so hot Luke can feel it like a sunburn; in the centre of the room slabs of rock have been set at strange angles, their surfaces engraved with glowing red symbols that make Luke feel ill if he looks at them for too long. At the centre of them, bubbling up from the floor like some strange stone mushroom, is what Luke assumes can only be an altar.

Vader goes to stand at the altar, passing his hands through the air above it. “Yes,” he whispers, almost as if to himself, “This…the site of my triumph. The site of my failure.” His head turns toward Luke. “You cannot change the past, my son. Not even all the might of the Dark Side itself can do that; this is where I learnt that lesson. There is no going back.” He steps back and motions Luke forward. “Here is where you must learn that same lesson. The choice is made; it cannot be taken back.”

Cautiously, Luke steps forward. Vader watches him expectantly, right up until he’s standing next to the altar, right until he puts his hand on it.

The blast of Dark Side energy that goes through him is so strong Luke blacks out for a second; when he comes to he’s on his knees, shaking, retching.

Vader doesn’t move closer. “Get up,” he says sharply, “and bring out your lightsaber.”

Slowly, Luke manages to do as he’s told. He unhooks his lightsaber from his belt and lays it out on the altar. “And now?”

“Remove the kyber crystal,” Vader says.

Something in Luke is screaming at him again, some deep, distant part of his mind telling him that this is all wrong, that he’s about to do something that can’t be undone. But then he imagines trying to go back, and realises that there’s nothing to go back to. No one to go home to. As Vader said, he’s made his choice; sealed it when he watched Endor being destroyed.

He takes the kyber crystal from his saber and lays it on the hard, uneven surface of the altar.

“Kyber crystals are naturally aligned with the Light, as you once were,” Vader says, his voice a low, threatening rumble from somewhere behind Luke. “Now your crystal must change, even as you changed. You must change it. _Bleed_ it.”

“How?” Luke asks, his voice a low, scratchy whisper.

“Anger,” Vader says, “Hate. Fear. Pain. Everything you have inside you, all that dark, hollow emptiness; let it pour into the crystal. Let it swallow it; consume it in Darkness. But beware; the crystal will resist you. It will fight the change. Be ready, and be firm in your conviction.” Lower, he adds, “Remember, there is no path but this; the two of us, ruling the galaxy. Together.”

“I know,” Luke says; and then he reaches down inside, summoning that deep, aching wellspring of anger and hurt and anguish and pain. He calls on it, dredges it up to the surface, gripping it tight; and when he has it firm in his grasp, he sends it outward, directly at the crystal.

He feels the crystal’s scream like a physical blow, straight into his stomach. For a moment he falters, overwhelmed; but then he regains himself, steadied by the endless maelstrom of Darkness behind him. The crystal fights, sending him flashes and images. Leia, Han, Wedge, other Rebels; Yoda, Obi-Wan, Uncle Owen and Aunt Beru. Their faces flick past him in a stream of pain and light, like a siren song to tempt him out of the Dark.

 _They’re all_ dead _,_ he hisses at the crystal, pushing harder. _They’re all gone. The only person I have left stands behind me._

The crystal pushes back harder, desperately trying to save itself, but Luke is determined. There is nothing left for him now; nothing but this.

The crystal howls, screams; then _breaks_. Not physically - it is still whole and sound where it lies on the altar - but Luke feels it crack, feels it’s inherent connection to the Light snap; feels it tumble off the same edge he plummeted from, feels it join him in the deep, welcoming embrace of the Dark.

When he opens his eyes, the crystal before him is a red deep as blood.

He doesn’t need Vader’s instruction to know what he must do. He slots the crystal back where it came from, closes up the hilt. Then he lifts the ‘saber high above his head and ignites it, revealing the strong, humming red beam.

He feels a hand land on his shoulder. Vader has not yet touched him once; it feels like jumping lightning flickers across his skin, skittering away from the point of contact. “You have done well,” Vader says in his ear, and Luke is sure that voice is not supposed to ignite something dark and hot and thick in the pit of his stomach, but it does.

“Thank you, father,” Luke says, and tries not to wince at how his voice cracks on the last word.

/

The fight with the kyber crystal exhausts him, the aching, bone-deep tiredness only hitting once Luke steps back into the castle proper. He’s so exhausted all of a sudden that he almost collapses right there in the hallway.

Vader steadies him with another hand to the shoulder, and the feel of it jolts Luke upright, suddenly and painfully awake. “You must rest,” his father says.

“I only just got out of bed,” Luke protests.

Vader tilts his head. “No. Your battle with the crystal lasted longer than it seemed; it has been several hours since we descended to the locus.”

“Still-”

“But that is no matter,” Vader says, cutting across him, “For you have expended much energy. You must rest.”

Luke isn’t sure this is the kind of care he would be receiving from any other Sith Master - and it isn’t the kind of thing he expected from Vader at all. It comes off as…fatherly. The image of Vader, the bogeyman who has been chasing them all these years, and a caring, protective father…it’s a hard one to reconcile.

“Fine,” Luke acquiesces, and lets Vader’s servant lead him back to the bedchamber he used before.

This time, when he dreams, Luke knows it’s a dream. He’s floating in endless darkness, with no up or down, no floor or ceiling, no horizon far off in the distance. No light.

He floats there for a long time, uncertain. There’s nothing here - a complete dearth, a lack of anything at all.

Then, just on the edge of his awareness, he feels _something_.

He has nothing else to do but go toward it. Merely thinking appears enough to propel him through the darkness, closer and closer to the thing he can sense. As he grows closer and closer, it begins to feel more and more like a _person_ , somewhere out there in the dark.

He’s very close when he feels whoever it is out there sense him back, as they become aware of his presence. He feels them coming closer, the two of them drifting toward each other through this endless black space. Eventually he sees something, something different in the featureless landscape; after a moment it’s shape coalesces into a humanoid form.

As it comes close enough to touch, Luke can see the shape of a man, the form rough and featureless. The figure’s body is a deep black covered by swirling spiral patterns of red; at each elbow and just above each knee it’s colour changes to a soft, glowing light blue. Luke has never seen anything like this figure - and yet somehow, it is intimately familiar.

“I closed the portal,” Vader says, and Luke isn’t surprised. Somehow, of course, he knew this was Vader.

Luke looks down at his own arm for a moment, and sees a swirling, sickly mix of blue, red and black - the former being choked and suffocated by the latter. His own right hand is the same soft, glowing blue.

“How can we be here?” Vader asks, and Luke shrugs.

“I have no idea where _here_ is, so your guess is as good as mine.”

For a long moment the blank red eyes of Vader’s new form stare at him. Then he says, “Perhaps, then, this is just a dream.”

“You were sleeping?”

“I was resting,” Vader says tightly, all the prickliness coming back into his voice. Luke had barely noticed it before, so used to this being Vader’s default setting; but now he’s heard what Vader’s voice can sound like wondering, or caring in his own brusque way, and he doesn’t want to hear the stinging anger in it anymore. He can also see it for what it is - a protective shell, a cocoon that has kept Vader safe for so long. For so very, very long.

But not from him, he decides. Not from Luke.

“You don’t have to be so guarded, when we’re alone together,” Luke says, setting his fear aside and deciding to be bold. If this is what he wants to say, he might as well say it.

It’s hard to read emotions on Vader’s newly featureless face, but Luke can clearly feel them through the Force - surprise, anger, trepidation.

He doesn’t give him time to speak. “If we’re to rule the galaxy together,” he says slowly, “We must share everything.”

So rarely has he seen Vader hesitate; yet he does, here. Eventually he says, “You would not want all of me. I am not…I have too many rough edges. I am not…whole.”

“I don’t care,” Luke says, because that’s the last thing on his mind right now. Besides, right now… “I don’t care,” he reiterates, “But here, now…you’re as whole as you ever were.”

The red spirals that swirl across Vader’s form seem to flare, and Luke can feel sudden, ravenous _hunger_ radiating through the Force. He doesn’t ask if Luke is sure - Luke is not sure he’s ever been so considerate; but then again, Luke doesn’t want him to be. Luke _wants_ the way Vader reaches for him, grabs him; he wants the roughness of his hands, the roughness of his body. The Dark Side is _passion_ , and that’s all Luke wants. The Dark Side is _want, wanting,_ and Luke is going to follow what he wants - even if it’s wrong. Even if this is ‘evil’. Even if this is his own father.

There’s no visible floor in this place, but when Vader pushes Luke down, there’s something solid beneath him, something cold that presses against him. Vader’s hands don’t feel the same as when something touches his skin; it’s more like someone is touching _him_ , some integral, nebulous but yet definite essence of himself that makes him _him_ , that makes him Luke Skywalker.

Vader’s hands are everywhere, all over him. Luke lies back and lets him in, lets him touch, lets him see every part of his body and mind. He can feel tendrils extending from both of them, gentle feelers that writhe and twist around each other, more and more fusing together as they draw closer, as Vader parts Luke’s legs and wraps them around him. _We’re forming a Force bond_ , Luke thinks, and the shock is an electric current, somehow completely erotic in this moment, and he’s so aroused he can barely breathe. “I want you,” he moans - as if it weren’t already obvious - but he needs to say it, needs Vader to hear it. Needs him to _know_ , to know how much Luke wants this. Has wanted this, maybe, ever since they set eyes on each other. The fact that they’re father and son doesn’t change that - doesn’t make the dark, magnetic attraction between them pull any less, doesn’t make the heat between them dim (if Luke is honest, it might just make this even hotter).

“I have you,” Vader says, his voice a low, menacing growl. “I will always have you. For all time.”

They’re not physical beings here, so Luke doesn’t need preparation; Vader just slides in, thick and achingly slow, and when he slides all the way home Luke can’t help but arch his back and moan, his toes curling with just how _right_ this feels. They were meant to be like this, the two of them, connected in every way, on every level. “Please,” he gasps, and Vader moves, and everything is just right; he’s just thick enough to ride the edge between pleasure and pain, and Luke is just slick enough that Vader moves easily, but not so smoothly that Luke can’t feel it. “Harder, oh-” Luke gasps, and the thrusts come quicker, harder. Vader pins his wrists down against the floor, taking what he wants, and that’s exactly what Luke wants; wants to be taken, to be used, to give everything he has.

When one of Vader’s hands skims across his chest he jolts; it feels like that hand brushed against the _heart_ of him, the very _soul_.

He wants it again.

“More,” Luke gasps, and Vader complies, passing his hand over that same spot. The feeling seems to ring within Luke, to tingle from the very heart of him right out to the tips of his fingers. “There,” he gasps, because this is _it_ , the thing he truly longs for; a connection, a tie, a cord that tightens between them, that binds them together irrevocably, irreversibly. He wants Vader’s soul, and he wants Vader to have his.

Luke moans again, riding the rising current of arousal like a wave, clenching around the hot, perfect thickness inside him. It’s all he wants, pushing him higher and higher until he crests, releases, aware of nothing but pleasure and Vader, right there with him.

When he comes back down, when everything is normal again - or as normal as it can be, here, in this place - he can feel the bond pulsing between them. Heavy, thick, _alive_. A full, binding tie.

“I will always be yours,” Luke gasps out, right before Vader captures his mouth in a rough, hot kiss.

/

Luke wakes up unpleasantly sticky, but relaxed; content to his core. He can feel the bond, still pulsing between them - a slightly weaker connection now they’re back in the physical world, but still there, and still present. It’s comforting, feeling it hanging between them. He can feel a mix of sharp emotion from Vader; somewhere between anger and fear, but with a thread of content that mirrors his own, hiding underneath. Vader may always be angry, Luke realises; it may be that nothing will ever be able to douse that fire. But maybe, sometimes, Luke might be able to tame it, if only for a little while.

Luke freshens himself up in the bathroom, then heads downstairs. He finds Vader where he found him yesterday; staring out at Mustafar’s bleak landscape, a stew of dark emotions in the Force. “Don’t you have somewhere to sleep?” he asks.

“I do,” Vader says, and Luke feels a spike of that same anger-fear run through him. Luke senses that he doesn’t want to talk about what went on in the dream, and that hurts for a moment; but he can still feel the bond running between them, that undeniable truth. Irrevocable. Irreversible. Something Vader cannot change. But Luke- Luke can change his father. Make him acknowledge what’s between them.

Maybe, Luke thinks, he could make Vader do anything. The Darkness waiting at his fingertips whispers that he could; it makes him feel _powerful_.

Maybe, soon, _he_ will be the Master.

But not yet, he thinks, tilting his head as he looks at Vader. His father isn’t yet ready to cede authority to him - but he will be, one day.

“How goes subjugating the rest of the Empire?” Luke asks.

“It is being dealt with,” Vader says tightly.

“Then we will move on?” When Vader turns to look at him, he echoes the words Vader said on the _Executor_. “To the home of the Sith?”

“Yes,” Vader says, finally moving. “Gather your things,” he says as he strides away toward the landing pad, “I will prepare our ship.”

/

Vader has his own ship for private purposes - a custom-built, sleek, beautiful beast of a ship, that takes off from the landing pad so smoothly that Luke barely feels it. Watching Vader at the controls, watching the confident, calm way he directs the ship and performs the hyperspace calculations, Luke can’t help but feel connected to him even more strongly than before. They are both in their element here, in the cockpit, sitting in front of the controls. Flying is something that resonates with both of them, that suits them down to their core. _I inherited that from him_ , Luke thinks, and the thought makes him feel something glow inside.

The trip will take over a day to complete. Vader retreats fairly soon to his meditation chamber at the back of the vessel, so Luke doesn’t see him for much of the trip. He’s not in the cockpit at the time, but Luke feels him hesitate as he leaves, feels mistrust warring with something that feels suspiciously like hope as Vader stands, still, in the cockpit. Then he makes a decision, and leaves, sweeping away down the hallways and into his private room.

Once Luke feels his father’s mind settle - as much as it ever does - through their bond, he goes quietly into the cockpit and looks around. At first nothing seems out of the ordinary, and Luke has to dig a little to find anything that seems odd. What he surmises, eventually, is that Vader was contemplating whether to lock the autopilot, which would have prevented Luke from disengaging it and changing the ship’s course. Luke smiles as he runs his hands over the controls. It seems Vader is willing to allow this one little piece of trust. That, at least, is a start.

Vader avoids him for most of the trip, both physically and in their dreams. Luke can tell he has hesitations about what happened between them in that strange liminal space on Mustafar. Whether it’s with the supposed inappropriate nature of their relationship, or with the idea of letting another person in so completely and intimately, Luke can’t tell, but he allows his father the space.

When they drop out of hyperspace at the coordinates Vader set, Luke sees a dusty orange planet hanging in space in front of them. Vader doesn’t speak, but he directs the ship into a landing on the surface, and as they approach Luke begins to see the shapes of buildings on the world’s huge mesas. “Will you tell me what this place is, now?” Luke asks.

Vader only says, “You will see.”

Vader lands the ship in a landing bay that looks like it hasn’t been used in centuries, and leads Luke through the disconcertingly empty and silent streets of a deserted city, across a bridge that links two of the mesas, and through what seems to Luke like some kind of huge temple complex. The deeper in they go, the more Luke can feel the Dark Side rising around him, pressing in from all sides like a cloaking embrace.

As they exit the possible-temple and walk out through a cut in the high rocks of the mesa, Vader turns to Luke. “Can you feel it?” he asks, his voice a low rumble. “The energy that suffuses this place.”

Luke had been able to feel it before they even stepped off the ship; has felt it creeping across his skin and cracking through his bones from the moment his foot hit the dirt. This place is suffused in the Dark Side, choked in it, the smothering blanket of it stronger here than in any place he has ever encountered. “This is the strongest Darkness I have ever felt,” he says, and he means it.

“Yes,” Vader says, his voice a low hiss, “Now you see.”

Abruptly the cut in the rock ends, and they pass out into a huge valley. Huge statues line the open space, majestic and imposing even as they are cracked and weatherbeaten, a few partially crumbled and fallen. The sharply rising walls of the valley are dotted with what look like large doors or entrances - into what, Luke doesn’t know.

“Have you guessed yet, my son?” Vader asks. “Where we are. On what momentous history we stand.”

There is only one place this could be - a place spoken of with fear and reverent dread in the few Jedi texts Luke has been able to read, mostly from the small supply in Yoda’s hut or the fragments he’s picked up in various libraries. “The Valley of the Sith Lords,” he says quietly, “On Korriban.” He speaks in a near whisper, half-afraid that if he raises his voice his words might wake whatever malevolent spirits find their unquiet rest in this place. The wind whistles through the valley in an eerie, quiet moan, almost like a wail of abject pain. The power of the Dark Side is so oppressive here, Luke can feel it like a hand pressed against his forehead.

“Open yourself,” Vader instructs, “Revel in the Darkness, rather than fighting it. Then you will be one with the energy that finds it’s place here.”

Luke breathes out, and does as instructed; he reaches into the well deep within himself and allows the Darkness to spill forth, spreading through his veins. Like vibrating forks beginning to hum at the same frequency, as the Darkness floods him, he feels the land, the very air around him respond, welcoming him. When he opens his eyes the landscape seems more familiar, somehow, though not any more friendly or pleasant. He sees shadows gathering and flickering in the corners of his vision, but he pays them no mind. “What must I do now?” he asks.

“What is in this valley?” Vader asks.

Luke allows his awareness to spill out around him, to touch every particle that makes up this valley and everything in it. Behind the doors in the valley walls, locked deep inside the earth, he feels _presences_ ; some peaceful, dreaming dark, silent dreams - while others scream like the tormented souls of the damned, forever locked in their inescapable prisons. “Tombs,” he says, blinking as he pulls back into his body. “The tombs of ancient Sith Lords.”

“Yes,” Vader says quietly. “Even in death, they hold great power. To truly become one of the Sith, you must take some of it.” He turns to Luke. “Are you ready?”

For a moment Luke looks at him without speaking. His father has taken the lead in all of this, so far; but here is a chance, an opening to become something greater, something _more_ than Vader or even Sidious could ever be. Luke isn’t sure why Vader brought him here, but he thinks maybe it is because he knows, deep inside, that he was never born to be an Emperor; he was never made to be the ruler, the guiding hand. In the end, Vader was always meant to serve. Maybe in his heart of hearts he longs for someone to take that power from him, even if he would never admit it aloud.

The thought of having power over Vader - of making him his servant, his loyal dog - sends shivers of pleasure and _want_ across Luke’s skin. He wants that future - and Vader has put into his hands the means of making it so.

“Of course,” he says, gesturing out at the valley before them, “Lead the way.”


End file.
